Multi-millionaire Massachusetts businessman Christy Mihos, a former Turnpike Authority board member (who has his own money to burn in the race for Governor of the bay state) has just mauled the state GOP. He has gone beyond spurning their party leadership's offer to support him for a run at the corner office on Beacon Hill to torpedoing their second choice. Not only has he refused their overtures to challenge Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey in a primary race for the GOP's nomination for governor, but he has declared he is in the race for the long haul, just not as a Republican. He will run as an independent candidate and is sure to siphon off money and support from Healey as she attempts to continue the legacy of the Romney administration.
GOP strategists had hoped Mihos would run as a Republican against Healey in the party primary this September. As an independent, however, he would avoid a party primary and face the Republican and Democratic candidates in the November general election.
The Boston Globe March 1rst
Make no mistake about it, this is lousy for the Massachusetts GOP.
In an overwhelmingly Democratic state, the GOP depends on a fairly recent and not-so-permanent alliance. A block of rural and suburban GOP voters, both conservative and moderate, linking up every four years with registered Independents and overtaking the Democrats traditional advantage in liberal Massachusetts via a loose coalition. As an independent, Christy Mihos doesn't have the personal popular support to win it all on his own. Not without a miracle groundswell of support from Democrats to offset the GOP votes he will lose to Healey. But he certainly can and more than likely will take enough of the old Bill Weld voting coalition money and support away from Kerry Healey, who doesn't exactly set the local GOP's world on fire, to cripple the Republican ticket. No matter who runs with Healey or how they try to sell her.
This was the story for most of the year:
Christy Mihos May Make Gov Run
Jan 7, 2006, Brockton Enterprise via Local Wire
Brockton -- Christy Mihos, a convenience store magnate and former member of the Massachusetts Turnpike Commission, filed papers with the state Friday establishing a bank account for use in a gubernatorial campaign.
The filing was the first step in a two-step process Mihos said he will complete next week to become an official candidate. He also must file a form with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance creating a committee to use the account.
"It means game on, I guess," Mihos said. The millionaire refused to say how much money he put into the account.
Mihos as Hamlet, doing everything to set up for a run, except declaring and signing his name on the dotted line, and teasing the GOP with options, until now. A Republican convenience store magnate who is well-liked by all in the state GOP who know him, Mihos would have been a nightmare for the Healey campaign to beat back in a primary. As a life-long Republican, he sent out some signals that he may run as an independent, but these rumors were dismissed or downplayed by the state GOP because he has been a faithful party donor and supporter for years and was very cordial with Romney.
Mihos, a registered Republican whose family founded the Christy's convenience store chain, said last fall he was considering a campaign for governor but would wait for Gov. Mitt Romney to announce whether he was seeking re-election.
The governor announced Dec. 14 he would not seek a second term.
"In deference to the governor, we did nothing until he announced. And now we're filing what we have to file, and now we're meeting with folks and bringing on the people we need," he said. "We'll get there, just more turtlelike than the others."
Mihos has yet to announce whether he will run as a Republican or as an independent.
BrocktonNewsSevice::Print copy
So, out of respect for the incumbent, he waited until Romney made a decision. The GOP must have been pretty sure that their potential Healey-remover was just around the corner... there was absolutely no hard evidence that Mihos would run as an independent, there were just rumors and Mihos didn't really address them. Even better, if he had said 'no', they still had a viable candidate in Kerry Healey dispite her own troubles to fall back on because they had kept the disatisfaction in-house. Mostly. And now this.
Tom Reilly, the party insider and current state Attourney General, has been slipping on one banana peel to the next on the road to trying to take the Democratic ticket. A mediocre public speaker who is best known for his slippery antics during the Gay Marriage debate I'm sure the GOP could almost taste what happened to AG turned Gov. candidate Scott Harshbarger happening to AG turned potential Gov. candidate Reilly.
The state Democratic party, content with its overwhelming lock on the state Senate and House, lets a guy they don't really like get creamed in the Governor's race and then dominate that GOP Governor for four years. I also have been seeing another trend with the state GOP: paying as little attention to (and completely underestimating when they do note his existence) outsider Deval Patrick as possible. I believe this is because he is not a known quantity to them and they think the insiders will be behind Reilly in the end. This scenario (that has happened to Massachusetts Democrats running for Governor time and time again) allows them to either run Mihos, but also to run with Kerry Healey with a 'she's the only thing thats going to keep the Democrats in check' strategy that has been their forte since Bill Weld in 1990 as a fallback. This is a mess now.
Mihos is expected to formally announce his decision Thursday. A wealthy businessman, he is likely to spend much of his own money in the race and also has set a $300,000 a month fundraising goal.
-The Boston Globe
I can practically hear heads banging on desktops at the bay state GOP headquarters. Great, just friggin' great.
Not only do they lose their local white knight candidate to (potentially) change the dynamic of the race in their favor (certainly a better chance to do so being sold as 'the next Weld' than Kerry Healey) as Democratic party insider AG Tom Reilly's campaign flounders, but he is the enemy now. He clearly threatens to split off enough of the traditional Weld-Celluci independents and moderate Republicans to make it nearly impossible for them to win, without having the ability to actually win the office on his own.
The way the GOP leadership had probably envisioned it, Mihos was a savior who would challenge and win the nod and rid them of Mitt Romney's lightweight and weak second fiddle who has been worrying them for a long time. Then, Tom Reily would win the Democratic nod and fall victim to the traditional curse of Massachusetts Democratic candidates for Governor; party bullshit and petty fueds sinking the top of the ticket.
The nonpolitician who would be governor
[...] If he runs as an independent, he becomes Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey's worst nightmare, inevitably draining GOP votes away from her in November.
And if he runs as a Republican, Mihos could be a force in the GOP primary if he uses his substantial fortune, amassed from a convenience store empire, to draw attention to his maverick candidacy and its populist, antiestablishment themes.
''I'm unbought and unbossed," Mihos told a group of about 60 Republican activists at a Danvers restaurant earlier this month. ''I'm not a politician. If you're looking for a politician, go to the other camp."
Mihos said he will announce on March 7, the deadline date, whether he will run against Healey in the Republican primary or as an independent. Either way, he said, he's a candidate.
''I'm in; I'm absolutely in," he declared.
The Boston Globe Feb 19th
But things are great for the Democrats if all this actually goes down and its a three way race.
A Deval Patrick win for the state Democratic nomination, plus a Christy Mihos Independent candidacy, denies the Massachusetts GOP everything that it was pinning its hopes on for 2006 and gives them the horrifying chance to finish third in a statewide race for office. But even if Tom Reily pulls it out in the end and is a mess as a candidate afterwards, the Mihos ticket may be enough to deny even traditional state Democratic in-fighting and bickering the corner office by completely gumming up the chances of either the GOP or his own candidacy pulling it out.
A Chrisy Mihos candidacy could be the worst-case scenario that the Massachusetts GOP has faced in a long time. At least since the prospect of running with Jane Swift as the top of the GOP ticket if Mitt Romney didn't show up on a white horse to 'save' them.
I am pulling for Deval Patrick, and if this goes down as a three way race I can see the Massachusetts GOP cursing the name of Chrisy Mihos for years after November 2006.